Did Obama know the CIA was spying on the Senate Intel Committee?

A leading US senator has said that President Obama knew of an “unprecedented action” taken by the CIA against the Senate intelligence committee, which has apparently prompted an inspector general’s inquiry at Langley.

The subtle reference in a Tuesday letter from Senator Mark Udall to Obama, seeking to enlist the president’s help in declassifying a 6,300-page inquiry by the committee into torture carried out by CIA interrogators after 9/11, threatens to plunge the White House into a battle between the agency and its Senate overseers.

McClatchy and the New York Times reported Wednesday that the CIA had secretly monitored computers used by committee staffers preparing the inquiry report, which is said to be scathing not only about the brutality and ineffectiveness of the agency’s interrogation techniques but deception by the CIA to Congress and policymakers about it. The CIA sharply disputes the committee’s findings.

Udall, a Colorado Democrat and one of the CIA’s leading pursuers on the committee, appeared to reference that surreptitious spying on Congress, which Udall said undermined democratic principles.

“As you are aware, the CIA has recently taken unprecedented action against the committee in relation to the internal CIA review and I find these actions to be incredibly troubling for the Committee’s oversight powers and for our democracy,” Udall wrote to Obama on Tuesday.

Preston expects Udall to walk the bold part back soon, perhaps saying he was misinterpreted or taken out of context. But, I wonder. Udall is in an increasingly difficult reelection bid in Colorado, and “standing tall” against abuses of power by an unpopular president might be what his campaign needs.

That aside, if Obama really knew about –and thus at least tacitly approved– espionage by the CIA against a co-equal branch of the government, that raises huge issues, not just of statutory violations, but a constitutional crisis, too.

If it’s as bad as it looks at first glance —If— the House would have to consider impeachment.

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2 thoughts on “Did Obama know the CIA was spying on the Senate Intel Committee?”

The Watergate scandal of the Nixon years was a real shock to everyone and included the use of CIA agents to photograph street demonstrators, among other things, but to ultimately attempt to derail the FBI investigation into it. This current administration makes the Nixon gang look like choirboys.

Under the National Security Act of 1947, President Truman specifically ordered there be NO internal national functions included in the CIA’s charter. He stated an intel apparatus was necessary but was definitely NOT to appear in any way to resemble the Nazi Gestapo.

So, Drew, what does this have to do with our sun god king who can apparently do any darned thing he wants to by fiat because he’s not encumbered by such trivialities as constitutionality, laws or precedent?